Pictures, Pictures, Everywhere!

Children today are growing up in a world where everyone feels the need to document every single moment, of every single day, of their lives. I’m just as guilty as the next Mom, taking hundreds of pictures of my children’s “firsts” and trying to capture all of the wonderful adventures we have. But as time goes on, the number of pictures stored on my phone, or my camera, or my computer (notice that none of those options include “photo album”) dwindles with each passing year.

I still take pictures of my kids, but I don’t feel the need to document every second of the day. I’ll be honest and say that part of the reason is laziness. Taking one hundred pictures, sifting through them, deleting all of the terrible ones, hoping that one of them is decent enough to keep, and putting it on my hard drive to stay there for all eternity (apparently) just seems like a lot of work.

But that’s only part of the reason. The other part is that when my kids were little, everything we did was an event, because they had never done anything before. Now that they’re older, we still do things with them, but not everything is deemed “camera-worthy.”

Touch-A-Truck events: These things are great. They’re free and the kids love them. But how many pictures of your kid on a dump truck do you really need?

1st Touch-A-Truck – Adorable! 100 pictures!

70th Touch-A-Truck – Yeah, yeah. You’re sitting in another fire truck. Make the siren go. Cool. Can we go now?

East Egg Hunts: Again, these are wonderful. We have several in our community put on by different groups for free, which is always a bonus for me, and they give out plenty of candy, which is a bonus for the kids.

1st Easter – Oh how cute! Look how much candy you got!

8th Easter – Nope. Not taking pictures. I don’t want any evidence of how much candy they got since I plan on throwing half of it out as soon as we get home.

Birthdays: I know that you obviously have to take pictures of your kids on their birthdays, and I do. I swear, I do!

1st Birthday- Take pictures of the cake, the food, the decorations, the favors, your kid with all of the guests, and every present as they open it.

5th Birthday – Forget to take your camera out until the party is almost over because you’re too focused on getting it over with as soon as humanly possible.

First Day of School Pictures: I love looking back at pictures of my kids on their first, first days of school, but as the years go on, it becomes increasingly difficult. It’s a miracle that I can even get them to the bus on time.

1st first day of school – Picture over here, picture over there, picture with Mom, picture with Dad, picture with sibling, picture getting on the bus, picture getting off the bus.

3rd first day of school – It’s a good thing I have Facebook, because seeing other parents posting first day of school pictures reminds me I should probably snap a couple.

6th Halloween – Yeah, great costume, now get your candy so we can get home, shower (maybe), and try to get two kids with sugar-highs to bed so we can get up and make it to the bus on time the next morning.

All of that being said, my kids had more pictures taken of them in the first year of their lives than I have in the last 37 years, but I don’t feel cheated or unloved because my parents don’t have 5000 pictures of me the day I was born. I love looking back at all the pictures I have of my children, and seeing how much they’ve grown over the years. I know the old saying goes, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” but sometimes I think an actual memory is worth even more.